The present invention relates to a tongue storage device that stores a tongue supported by a seat belt, which is provided as an accessory on a vehicle seat such as, for example, a rear seat and restrains an occupant in an emergency, when the seat belt is not in use, the tongue engaging with a buckle on a side of a vehicle enabling an occupant to wear the seat belt, and to a seat belt apparatus having the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a tongue storage device that stores both an anchor tongue and an occupant restraint tongue, and a seat belt apparatus having the same.
In general, seat belt apparatuses provided as an accessory in automobile seats are designed to restrain with seat belts occupants that are inertially moved in emergencies, in which a large vehicle deceleration occurs, such as in collisions or the like.
As such seat belt apparatuses, three-point-type seat belt apparatuses of various types have been developed. One known three-point-type seat belt apparatus is disposed in a rear seat and includes two tongues as shown in FIG. 7. A seat belt apparatus 1 includes: a seat belt retractor (not shown) disposed on a vehicle body, such as a roof portion 2, a pillar, or the like, so as to not be visible from a passenger compartment 3, the seat belt retractor being, for example, an emergency locking retractor (ELR), an automatic locking retractor (ALR), or the like; an anchor tongue 5 disposed at a leading end of a seat belt 4 withdrawn from the seat belt retractor; an occupant restraint tongue 6 slidably supported on the seat belt 4; an anchor buckle 8 which is disposed on a rear seat 7 and into which the anchor tongue 5 removably locks; an occupant restraint buckle 9 which is disposed on the rear seat 7 and into which the occupant restraint tongue 6 removably locks; and a tongue storage device 10 disposed at a position of the roof portion 2, from which the seat belt 4 withdrawn from the seat belt retractor is spooled out, the tongue storage device 10 for storing therein the anchor tongue 5 and the occupant restraint tongue 6 when the seat belt 4 is not being worn.
The tongue storage device 10 is to store, when, for example, only one or two persons sit in the rear seat 7 or a seat back of the rear seat 7 is folded down to use a space in a vehicle rear portion as a luggage compartment, the anchor tongue 5 and the occupant restraint tongue 6 in the roof portion 2 or the like so that the tongues 5, 6 do not cause an obstruction when the seat belt apparatus 1 is not in use. It is to be noted that the seat belt apparatus 1 disposed in left and right seats in the rear of the vehicle includes an arrangement, in which the position, from which the seat belt 4 withdrawn from the seat belt retractor is spooled out into the passenger compartment, is set at the pillar of the vehicle body and the tongue storage device 10 is disposed at the pillar.
As the tongue storage device 10, a tongue storage device has been proposed, in which an anchor tongue and an occupant restraint tongue are inserted in that order through an insertion port in the tongue storage device into a storage space, so that the tongues are partially stacked one on top of the other at mutually offset positions (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-331909).
According to the tongue storage device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-331909, the storage space can be made small in a thickness direction thereof, while at the same time, a head clearance can be sufficiently large.
In the above-described tongue storage device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-331909, however, the anchor tongue is first inserted through the insertion port into the storage space and then the occupant restraint tongue is inserted through the insertion port into the storage space. That is, two actions are required for storing the two tongues. This makes the storage operations of the two tongues cumbersome, posing a problem of poor storage operability of the two tongues.
In addition, the two tongues of the anchor tongue and the occupant restraint tongue are both elastically held using a spring member and a receiving member. This poses a problem in that it is difficult to hold the anchor tongue and the occupant restraint tongue in a stable manner. Moreover, an extra holding member is required for holding the occupant restraint tongue. This results in an increased number of parts required.